All in Scarlet Uniform (Napoleonic War 4) (14 page)

Pringle decided to solve the matter in the most practical way open to any officer. ‘Sergeants!’ he called.

H
anley loved Salamanca, and part of him wanted to follow the priest as he returned to his college after handing over the package of letters. Instead, the British officer took out his glass and focused on the distant towers. It would be pleasant to walk across the Roman bridge into the city, but even more useful to talk to some of his sources directly, instead of simply reading reports. There were always more questions, and someone’s expression helped when judging their reliability. Yet Salamanca was the main base of Marshal Ney’s 6th Corps, and it was simply not yet worth the risk. Nor was there enough time to linger, for he needed to hurry if he was to make his next meeting. Closing the telescope, he hauled himself back into the saddle, and then prodded the mare in the flanks to set her trotting back between the scattered trees and brush.

His guide was waiting, back where the trees were denser, and the officer’s smile prompted the usual curt nod as its sole acknowledgement. Benito had lost an arm last year, and so his ability to fight with El Charro’s band had gone, but Hanley had quickly come to trust his knowledge of the country. He suspected that this was the legacy of long years as a thief and smuggler before the war. It was hard to tell the man’s age, for although his thin remnant of hair was white and his skin looked like old parchment, he was strong. Even one-handed, Hanley reckoned that the man would make a nasty enemy.

They rode for three hours through the steady rain, and in truth Hanley was disinclined to speak, more concerned with keeping his boat-cloak tightly drawn around his neck. Sometimes they stopped at farms to eat, but on this damp April day Benito grunted that there was no one he trusted near by, and so they tethered their horses outside a small shrine next to a ruined cattle pen and sat to eat. Hanley had some ham to add to the loaf provided by the guide, and he watched in fascination as Benito one-handedly flicked open his knife, and then, gripping the meat between his knees, carved it into thin slices.

‘
Bueno
,’ he said a little later, after eating the simple meal with every sign of satisfaction.

The pair rode on for another four hours, and still the rain fell, but only once did they see any signs of a French patrol, and then in the distance. It was hard to be sure with the steady rain misting the air, but Hanley thought that they were dragoons, and Benito led him away quickly. Patrols were the real danger, because otherwise they gave a wide berth to all the French posts. Ney’s corps was spread thinly, and from captured letters Hanley knew that the French were having problems gathering food and fodder.

By nightfall they had reached a small band of guerrillas led by a captain who still wore the faded yellow jacket of one of the regular cavalry regiments. He had barely twenty men, a couple of them deserters from the foreign regiments in French service, and so contented himself with watching the enemy, only attacking isolated stragglers or making night-time visits to the houses of those who proclaimed loyalty to Joseph Bonaparte.

‘Junot is laying siege to Astorga,’ said the captain, after Hanley had shared some wine with him. They were in a farmhouse high up in the hills, and had sentries posted along the only two paths to come this way. Hanley was not sure whether the farmer was an old friend or too scared to refuse the band of partisans. ‘He moved at the end of March. The city is holding, but for how long …’ The Spanish officer shrugged.

He was hearing the same news from all his sources, and was sure now that it was true. Ney remained dispersed around Salamanca, and General Junot’s 8th Corps had gone north to attack the fortified city of Astorga. It was almost the last important stronghold in that area, and when it fell – there was no one capable of marching to the city’s relief and so it was not a matter of if, but when – the French would dominate yet more of Spain.

‘Sieges are usually costly,’ said Hanley. ‘Think of Saragossa.’ During the early stages of the war, the Aragonese city of Saragossa had tested the French sorely, the defenders not giving up when their walls were breached, but fighting street to street and house to house. It was said that at one stage the French and Spanish battled for days inside the cathedral. The first siege failed, but the French came back, and although their losses were dreadful, in the end they took the place.

‘Astorga is not Saragossa,’ said the captain. ‘Its walls are old and there are not many defenders.’

‘A month?’ asked Hanley.

‘Maybe three weeks,’ said the Spaniard, and Hanley could see the deep gloom in the man’s eyes. He was seeing the same mood wherever he went, for everyone could see that the French were winning. Men like this were not giving up, but were unable to see any real hope, and so they fought on without it because they loved their country and hated to be trampled by the invaders.

Time was important. Hanley still did not quite understand why Murray and Baynes had hammered home that point, for as far as he could see it would take years and not months to make a difference. Yet if they were right the French did not seem to realise it. Even a few weeks of delay while one of the corps marked down to invade Portugal was sent off to the north meant that it was a little longer before that invasion could start.

The French did not seem to be in a hurry. Napoleon had not yet come, but a copy of
Le Moniteur
reported his marriage to Princess Marie Louise of Austria, so perhaps he would soon leave for Spain. For it was certain that the French were preparing, and as Hanley searched through the letters brought by the priest he saw plenty of signs of this. Ney was gathering reserves of supplies at Salamanca, and had ordered the construction of dozens of big new ovens. That meant he planned to turn stocks of grain into bread or hard-tack biscuit for use when the campaign actually started. The French marshal was still short of transport wagons and the beasts to pull them. Hanley’s sources had also managed to steal several orders for local commanders to buy any they could find and send them back to the corps. Hanley smiled. It was always a sign that the French were desperate for something when they spoke of paying, for when things were easy to find they simply took what they wanted. That only made farmers and merchants careful to hide as much as they could, so in harder times coin was used to coax them.

Money featured heavily in the documents and reports. The Emperor had ordered his armies in Spain to fund themselves locally, and no doubt that was easier to say in Paris than to make a reality in the field. Hanley read of bickering between the marshals and generals, each trying to keep the resources from the region he controlled for personal use. In some cases that use was very personal indeed, as men plundered the country and kept the money for themselves. One of his best sources had sent a bundle of letters describing the row between Ney and General Loison after the latter arrested eleven women from the town of Benevente and demanded a huge ransom from their families for their release.

‘I wouldn’t pay,’ said the captain gruffly when Hanley told him about it. ‘There are always more women.’

It was a woman who provided the best of Hanley’s reports – or rather a lady. The world knew her as La Doña Margarita Madrigal de las Altas Torres, the widowed daughter-in-law of the head of one of the greatest families of Old Castile, and as a heroine of the siege of Saragossa. Hanley knew that her heroism was as real as her identity was false. The real lady had died of fever as she returned from the New World, and so her maid had taken her place and used her mistress’s wealth and position to fight the French. La Doña Margarita – even Hanley still thought of her naturally by that name – received reports from people all over the country, paying where necessary, and passing it on to the Allied armies. Last year she had travelled widely, her family connections securing her passes from both sides, but that was when she had pretended to be pregnant with the heir to the title. The baby was ‘born’ near Christmas, and for the last months she had remained in one of the family’s houses in Salamanca. Hanley did not know where the boy came from, but presumably it was an orphan or a child whose parents were willing to part with him.

Hanley wondered whether the secret would remain a secret for very long. For the moment, the lady was busily gathering every piece of information she could. There was a lot about the arrival of several companies of engineers. The officers and men were there, but at the moment their equipment and supplies were still at Burgos some three hundred miles away. General Ruty headed the engineers, and one letter forwarded by La Doña Margarita explained that he had had to convince the paymaster of 6th Corps to advance him 200,000 francs to feed his soldiers and purchase tools for them.

The detail about the engineers was exceptionally good, and La Doña Margarita explained that much came from a new source, the mistress of a major on Ruty’s staff. The woman called herself Molly, claimed to be English and was certainly a foreigner of some sort, and expected to be well paid. La Doña Margarita had given the woman what she wanted, and Hanley believed that she had done the right thing. When the invasion came the French would rely on their engineers to besiege the fortresses in their path, so keeping a close eye on Ruty and his men was well worth the expense.

Hanley’s mind wandered to think more about La Doña Margarita herself. She was a tall, dark-eyed and dark-skinned young woman, with a round face and very long black hair. He admired her both as an agent and a woman, and that was one of the reasons it was so tempting to sneak into Salamanca and meet her again. Another was the mistress of the engineer officer, but that was for more practical concerns. If the girl really was British, and both willing and able to win the confidence of French officers, then she could prove extremely useful. Hanley also had an idea about her, and although he knew that the odds were long he was more and more convinced that it would prove true. During the retreat to Corunna, Dobson’s daughter Jenny had fled from the army and her newborn baby. After Medellín, Hanley had been captured, and before his escape he had a fleeting glimpse of Jenny working with a party of whores to entertain French officers. Her hair was dyed, and La Doña Margarita said in her letter that the major’s mistress had fair hair. Jenny was determined and very ambitious, and if it was she then Hanley was all the more convinced that she could be useful. He would like to find out, but he knew that there was more to it than that. La Doña Margarita and Jenny Dobson alike stirred feelings he had not felt since he had ceased to love Mapi, the young dancer he had kept during his years in Madrid. She was out there somewhere, another source spying on the French, but Hanley was still not sure whether he had the courage to face her. A visit to Salamanca held far more appeal.

Yet it was not to be for some time, and before dawn he and Benito set out, heading back towards Ciudad Rodrigo. The morning was quiet, and for once the sun shone and the rain clouds stayed away. At noon, Benito left Hanley outside and rode into a village not far from the main road. He came back with news that a big French foraging party was sweeping the country ahead of them. They went to the north and rode hard across a stretch of hills too open to provide any real concealment. The ground was wet, so there were not the usual clouds of dust to mark the passage of bodies of troops, and that meant that the French infantry were only a mile away when they came over the brow of a rise and saw them coming towards them.

Hanley and Benito drove their tired mounts as fast as they could, riding in a wide arc off to the north again. Isolated riders were a suspicious sight in this country, and for a few minutes two mounted French officers gave chase, but when they failed to gain on the fugitives they returned to the safety of the column. It was unwise for one or two Frenchmen to stray too far, for that risked capture or assassination, and after more than two years of war in Spain every one of Napoleon’s soldiers had heard the stories of torture and mutilation.

The cavalry were usually more determined, and when late in the afternoon Benito jerked his head behind them and said ‘
Mira!
’ Hanley’s heart sank when he spotted the hussars. There were ten of them, all in the drab grey uniforms of the 3ième Hussars of Ney’s corps, and they came on steadily, no more than half a mile away.

Hanley doubted that the French were acting on anything more than suspicion. In the past he had bluffed his way past French patrols, but today he wore his red coat and knew that he could not pass as a civilian.

‘Come on,’ he said to his guide, and they urged their horses into a canter. The hussars kept pace but did not gain. Hanley and Benito were well mounted, but the animals were tired, and perhaps the French were fresher. After forty minutes the grey-uniformed hussars were barely any further behind them and the two men could feel their horses slowing. Hanley’s mare almost tripped several times and that was a sure sign that she was becoming exhausted.

A quarter of an hour later and the French had gained a little ground, but at this rate they would not catch up with them before darkness had fallen. Yet the French kept coming, and that could only mean that they did not need to reach their prey, and were confident of driving them into the arms of someone ahead of them.

‘Which way?’ asked Hanley, knowing that Benito was more likely to get them out of this situation. The Spaniard nodded forcibly ahead of them, and the British officer felt that the best thing was to trust his guide. If the French caught them then the Spaniard would be hanged or shot. Hanley would be a prisoner, and that would no doubt be dull, but unless he resisted it was unlikely that they would kill him. Grimly he wondered whether he would get to see Salamanca sooner than he thought.

The French light cavalry crept ever closer, and then one of them fired a carbine at a range that was still absurdly long and Hanley realised that they must be signalling. His mare was foamed in sweat and stumbled so badly that he almost lost his seat. He patted her neck and urged her on.